1 Timothy 1:16 However, for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering… Some men speak only of a salvation which they have heard of from others. Some teach others a salvation which they have experienced themselves. Paul was the chief of these. This personal element runs through all his writings. The stream of his teaching sprang at first, and still springs, from the fountain depths of his own soul, and it was, therefore, a living stream, like the river in Ezekiel's prophecy, which deepened as it flowed and healed wherever its waters descended. God had fulfilled to him the words, "The water that I shall give him shall be within him a fountain of water springing up to everlasting life." The point which comes before us to-day is this — his salvation ended not in himself, it was a pattern to encourage all other sinners to trust in the like forgiving mercy. We are very dependent on fashions and patterns in all parts of our life, to assist our labours, to stimulate our energies, to encourage our hopes. Examples act upon us more powerfully than arguments. Happy the Church which can say to all around, not only "Believe the Gospel," but "See what it has done for us! — that it has given us peace with God, a new and nobler life within, of thought, of design, of love, of hope, of action. Come with us, and we will do you good." The best recommendation of a remedy, and of teaching, is its visible effect on ourselves. Let us see, by looking more closely into the history of St. Paul, how remarkably he was a typical pattern of salvation by Christ in all its stages and developments from first to last. I. IN HIS CALL. This was a supernatural and gracious work of God, brought about by an act above and beyond all ordinary moral laws. The act of placing saving truth before us as a heavenly vision is always the act of God alone, in His providence and grace. It is the result of a purpose of God, a call. Men do not discover truth savingly by mere study or experiment, as they find out the secrets of nature. Flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven. It is the Spirit who says to Philip on behalf of the Treasurer, "Draw nigh to this chariot," and opens to him the book of Esaias the prophet. If you have been visited with a view of the reality of Jesus Christ as your Saviour, this has been the act of God. "Of Him are all things." So it was with Saul of Tarsus. II. Paul's life is A PATTERN OF ARBITRARY AND SOVEREIGN SELECTION TO SPECIAL SPIRITUAL ADVANTAGES AND SPECIAL APPOINTMENTS — the result of an everlasting purpose of God. He is a chosen vessel to Me to bear My name before kings and peoples — a splendidly embossed golden vase in which sweet odours of truth shall be burned before all nations. The world is full of such special and individual destinations that can be traced to no other source than the special will of God. Thus, too, some nations, as Israel of old, and now the Saxon race. Yet this Divine predestination is quite consistent with man's ultimate freedom. The predestinations of God do not enslave, but liberate and energize the will of man. "He worketh in us — to will." The will is ours, the inspiration is God's. "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision." But the special vocations of God's servants are not for their own private and personal behoof. They look toward the profit of many, that they may be saved. If Paul is the chosen vessel, it is that he may "preach the Gospel to every creature." "To make all men see the fellowship of the mystery." III. St. Paul was A PATTERN IN HIS PARDON. "In him first Jesus Christ showed forth all long-suffering," to encourage others, though vile as he, to wash in the same life-giving fountain. We need other and nearer patterns. And they abound around us. Would that some whose experience is large and exact, and who have seen into the secret of the salvation of many different kinds of souls, would write for us a variety of biographies to serve as encouraging patterns, suited to modern contemporary society. It seems useless to tell the modern young man, whose form of alienation from God, his heavenly Father, is not that of a cruel persecutor, that he may take courage to trust in the mercy of God from the example of St. Paul. It does not touch him. A pattern of modern spiritual life that sprang out of a modern callousness and love of trifling amusements, just like his own, is what he requires. Tell them of such "patterns" as these, and they prove very helpful. God reveals Himself in many ways in nature, and Christ reveals Himself in many ways in the spiritual providence — not by books only, much less by sermons only — but by lives, somewhat akin to our own, and likely to move and touch and animate us by their example in kindred spheres of action. And so with women, and young women. The "patterns" which are likely to affect them, in a way to draw them to Christ, in closer love, are not those set before us in "Foxe's Book of Martyrs," where men had to burn at Smithfield for denying transubstantiation, at the behests of Mary Tudor and her bishops. They must be drawn from nearer home and from our own day. And such "patterns" of loving and noble lives, inspired with tender compassion, and industrious obedience, and diligent zeal in home duties are so numerous nowadays that a girl must live in a very heathenish circle if she knows of none which can help her to serve her Saviour. Let us not be so blind as to see no transfigurations of character except in the dead. There are around us not a few who shine already in the garments of immortality; who can be depended on for truth, for gentleness, for industry, for serious tenderness, and for active sympathy; and whose uplifted faces already gleam with the reflected light of that city of the living God to which they are moving upwards. But when all is said of the helpfulness of patterns of salvation in aiding us to believe and love the Lord, it remains true that earthly lives are but patterns of things in the heavens, and not "the very image of the things." They serve but as the shadows of the heavenly realities. They are but prophecies of a more glorious dawn. For the end is not yet, and when that which is perfect is come, that which is imperfect shall be done away. "Then shall I be satisfied when I wake up in Thy likeness." (E. White.) Parallel Verses KJV: Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. |
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